The End Is Near

This past weekend I went to NanJing again. NanJing used to be the capital of China and there is a lot of history and things to do there. Saturday Josh, Alyssa and I went to the Purple Mountain in search of a giant Buddah. It took us all afternoon to find it and it was not easy by any means. We wandered around the extremely confusing park for who knows how long before finally finding a picture of the Buddah. We pointed at the picture and were told by means of sign language that we had to take a cable car to the top of the mountain to see the Buddah. But the cable car wasn't anywhere near where we were at that particular point in time. We had to get in a van and drive maybe 10 minutes to get to the cable car. Then we wandered around at the top for a while (We even had a map, it was pretty sad) before finding the Buddah. I climbed up and sat on it's belly to have my picture taken. This little old man came around the bushes that were kind of hiding us from view and gasped very loudly and started speaking in heated Chinese. I assumed he was getting upset over a white person debasing Buddah so I quickly climbed off. Turns out that wasn't what he was saying because his grandson climbed up on Buddah's head and had his picture taken. After grandpa left we had a photo shoot with Buddah, it made sweating and wandering around a mountain all day totally worth it.

 That Saturday the temperature reached about 100 degrees and it felt like 500% humidity to me. We made it back to the Isom's where Alyssa and I were staying and had time for a quick shower before the ladies of the Relief Society showed up for a party. That was about all the excitement for that weekend.
This week has been kind of a sad one for me actually. It was my last week teaching. In every class when I told them I was done teaching there was a stunned silence. In one class one boy asked "Why?" and that was all they said for a little bit. I am so very sad to be leaving my students. It was rough at the beginning but I've come to love each and every one of them. They are each so unique and fun. For my last class I put together some pictures of some of my favorite things in China and some things I miss from America. They really enjoyed seeing what I missed and the things about their culture that I love. They can't understand why we don't do KTV in America, I couldn't explain in because I don't understand it either. After that we played a quick game for about 20 minutes or so and then I took pictures. I would attach some pictures but it takes a really long time to do it and I can't get my yahoo account to pull up right now. I think when I get back to America (Which is too soon for comfort) I will just post pictures so expect to see lots of those later. Also, anyone that wants to sit long enough to look at pictures and hear about China I can so do that for hours.

Tomorrow I am starting a very long vacation. I am hopefully heading to the Philippines. I say hopefully because saying things are for sure in China is a good way to make them not for sure. But all the flights are booked so I better make it! I will be gone until Monday June 25th so don't expect to hear from me until then! This post is a little shorter than normal but I'll make up for it when I get back. :)

Seat Well and Hold Steadily

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've gotten so use to my life here in China that nothing really exciting had happened to write about.
A few weekends ago I went to SuZhou and ZhouZhuang with Rick and Sarah. They are both water towns and that area is called "the Venice of the Orient". ZhouZhuang had a sign that said it's China's No. 1 water town so that's pretty exciting right? Both cities were beautiful. We had fun wandering around taking pictures and bargaining. Our train got into SuZhou around noon and we took a bus to ZhouZhuang that day. We spent the afternoon in ZhouZhuang and caught a bus back to SuZhou early evening. Once we were in SuZhou we headed to our hostel where our first problem arose. It's very hard to get a hostel in SuZhou, we'd tried going to SuZhou during the May holiday but all the hostels were booked. We were lucky to get a hostel the weekend that we went. It's a very crowded place. When you book a hostel you have to put what time you will be arriving. Sarah and I booked our rooms on separate computers with separate cards and both used different websites to book the hostel. We were skyping all the information to each other and decided to tell the hostel that we would be there at 8:00 pm. I don't know how many of you knew this already (I didn't until I came to China) but China uses military time. So we show up to the hostel at 7 pm, so we thought we were an hour early and all was well. No, all was not well. Somewhere along the line our check in time changed from 8:00 pm to 18:00 which is 6:00 pm. Then we got the worst news of all: They gave our rooms away. I was really worried because it had been so hard to find a room in SuZhou so chances of us finding one somewhere else was probably slim to none. The lady at the front desk was nice though, after we explained the mistake she made some calls and found us a room in a "quaint" little motel down the street. It wasn't listed online because it was Chinese so no one there spoke any English. I was glad we were only staying one night because it was kind of gross and didn't have hot water.
Sunday we went to Humble Administrator Garden. It was very pretty and green. Then we took a boat ride on the canals throughout the city. Our guide was awesome. He pulled out a map to ask us where we were from. He got really excited when we pointed to America (It took a minute of searching to find America. He had it folded in half and Chinese maps have China at the center so it's not where you first expect it to be). He sang some songs for us while we were boating along. He'd always get our attention then motion for us to be quiet and listen. He was pretty good as well so that was fun.
I got to teach one class on Monday last week and that was it. They had more exams on Wednesday and Thursday. I hate it when the teachers tell me that my classes are cancelled because they always say "Oh, you are so lucky." I want to say "Okay, you take a vacation and I'll teach your classes." I really like teaching and I hate it when they take my classes from me, especially this close to the end. I haven't taught this past week either. Grade 3 (Seniors) has the big college entrance exam this week so grade 2 and grade 1 have had a holiday. The most exciting part of last week was Childrens' Day. I laughed about that one. When I was little I whined to my parents that there was a Father's day and a Mother's day but no Children's day. They always told me everyday was Children's day. Now that I know Children's day does actually exist I feel like my parents cheated my childhood! All the smart and special kids at the primary school (Yes, that is what they are called) get all dressed up and learned a song and dance that they performed. They were all so cute! I had two little kids give me rings that day and on the bus to the cinema I had little kids basically throwing food at me. That was exciting. After we got off the bus a little girl pulled me to some seats and then I had about 3 little kids putting stickers all over my face. Those were not fun to pull off later.

Last weekend Alyssa and I went to HeFei to visit two boys that came with our group. That was a lot of fun. It was about a 2 hour train ride there which wasn't bad at all. We got there Friday evening, had dinner and then chatted the rest of the night. We took a bus to Kevin's apartment and got a kick out of the sign that was on all the buses in HeFei. It said "Seat well and hold steadily". And that's exactly what we did.
 The next day we went to the zoo. Zoos in China are so much cooler than zoos in America. They don't have cages like they do in America. Don't misunderstand, the animals aren't running wild throughout the zoo but it's a lot more up close and personal in China. The best part was the panda bear. Pandas are China's national treasure, they are very important to them. The four of us were laughing about this and joking about the Chinese people crowding around pens to see them. Of course when we made it to the panda enclosure we were pushing just as hard as the Chinese to get to the front to see it. It was so adorable just sitting there eating bamboo while everyone was snapping photos of it.

Sunday Alyssa and I looked up train times and found one that would get us back to ZhenJiang with enough time to catch the last bus to our city. Everything was going great, we made it to the train station on time and the lines weren't very long to buy tickets. We made it to the front and that's when our problems arose. We had written down the train number and the stop we wanted and the time it left and everything. We were very prepared. The train that we had picked out did not exist. The lady couldn't find it. The poor lady panicked, white people make them nervous in general to be honest, so she rushed off to find someone who spoke English. We got a train home but we would not be able to make it in time to catch our bus home. So we got on the train not sure what to do because there are no hostels in ZhenJiang for us to stay at. We made a spur of the moment decision to get off the train in NanJing instead because there were lots of people we could stay with there. The Isoms were nice enough to take us in for the night. It was actually pretty fun, Anne made us pancakes and her little girls played magic tricks and puzzles with me. The Isoms have adopted three Chinese girls, each from different places in China. Eventually Alyssa and I did make it back to YangZhong and I was so exhausted and so happy to see my shower.
As I mentioned before I haven't taught this week so nothing super exciting has happened. Wednesday afternoon some of my friends from grade 2 decided to go to KTV and invited me to go with them. That was a lot of fun. They'd pick songs for me to sing and most of them were Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. The Chinese love Lady Gaga unfortunately. They even have an expression involving her that I absolutely love! It's "Oh my Lady Gaga!" After KTV we went to hotpot and Scotty ordered a very spicy dish that made me and Doris sniffle a lot. That was all fun except for I accidentally ate a really spicy pepper that made my tongue go numb. That was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Yo Ho Yo Ho A Pirate's Life for Me!

Last weekend I went to NanJing for a Young Adult party, which is basically a China Horizons party. Josh and I caught an 8:00 bus out of YangZhong Saturday morning and made it to NanJing in record time. We were meeting up with China Horizons teachers at Becca's house to watch the Hunger Games. Yes, in America this would be considered illegal. The version that was owned was indeed pirated. It was one of the bad quality pirated copies but we got the point of the movie. Obviously, the copy had been made while recording it in a theater because people would stand up in the movie and you could see their outlines as they wandered around in front of the screen. A little inconsiderate if you ask me! Josh and I made it to NanJing at 11:00. The group wasn't meeting until noon so we found a mall right by Becca's house to wander around in for a little bit. Malls in China are way more fun than malls in America. This one had 8 floors and lots of elevators and decorations all around. Josh and I wandered all 8 floors but the best floor was the one that had the little children arcade in it. There were elephants and giant ape things. I found some new friends with the monkeys, I thought I fit in quite nicely with them.

 Josh and I wasted an hour at the mall and were a few minutes late but we still beat everyone there. Becca made Mexican food for us. It tasted so delightful! She had chicken, salsa (that was the biggest novelty for me, well that and the tortilla chips), onions and peppers and tortillas. We all made two taco thingys that were too big to close and devoured them in record time. Becca also made some popcorn which was just lovely. The only problem is we put the popcorn on the cocoa table in the middle and I didn't want everyone to know what a pig I was when it came to popcorn by continually going in the middle to get popcorn so I didn't eat a ton of it.
After watching the Hunger Games we all left for the Young Adult party which was at the hotel that we have church at. We had made it all the way there when I discovered some people were getting sandwiches with Spencer, one of the guys that works at China Horizons that recently moved to NanJing. Oh man that sandwich was so delicious. After making it back to the hotel I realized something that may or may not be a problem in the near future. When I eat Western food my stomach goes into panic and I swear it's thinking "Does not compute! Does not compute!" It then proceeds to get the food out of it in any way it possibly can. Yeah, I stayed close to a bathroom for the rest of the night. Everyone was watching a movie called 17 Miracles, and I've heard it really makes you cry. I decided I'd rather do the crying in private and not in front of all my peers so I hung out in the lobby with a couple other friends. I was really glad I made this decision because it benefited more than just me. Last weekend in NanJing one of my friends had decided to grow his hair out. He's had a military cut his entire life so this was a really big deal for him. Unfortunately, growing out his head hair also meant that he was growing out his eyebrow hair. When I saw him in NanJing the weekend before the whole uni brow thing was really bothering me. I had been given wax as a going away present before I left for China and I almost brought it with me so I could wax his eyebrows but I wasn't really sure how one brought that kind of stuff up so I didn't. I really regretted it though because Brian brought up his uni brow and I jumped on the opportunity to take care of the problem. He was upset that I didn't bring the wax but consented to let me pluck. So I sat on the couch in the lobby and he put his head in my lap and let me go at it. This next moment was probably my favorite of the night. He closed his eyes and I plucked the first hair. His eyes flew open in shock and he exclaimed "Ouch! That hurt!" I was proud of him though, even though his eyes were watering pretty badly (He repeatedly denied that he was crying) he let me take care of the problem. It wasn't a perfect job, really this boy has eyebrows that remind me of a werewolf for some reason (And not the Jacob kind, can you picture that man with a uni brow problem? I don't think so). That was probably the highlight of my weekend.

I am quickly running out of games and things to teach my students so this week and next we are watching movies. I picked a different movie for each class so I didn't get sick of one movie. Class 6 got Monsters Inc., class 10 got Toy Story, class 3 got Megamind and class 5 got Tangled. When I was showing the movie in class 6 it randomly stopped playing and there was still 20 minutes of class. I quickly taught them how to play hangman and that's what we did for the rest of class. I was quite surprised because they absolutely loved that game. None of them wanted to think of the words to say so I did that part but they loved guessing. It really stressed some of them out. One of the students would start yelling "Time out! Time out! Let us think!" and then he'd stare at the board for a long period of time. One time I put up a phrase and told them it was two words. One boy barely glanced at it and then said "Ice cream." The most unfortunate part about that was he was right, I guess they know I really like my ice cream by now. All the other movies worked great though. Toy Story was a bit rough but they still seemed to enjoy it. I guess a lot of the jokes and stuff are more of a culture thing and they don't always understand. Megamind was a huge hit. The kids were laughing super hard and they seemed to really enjoy that one. I was tempted to show Megamind in class 5 as well because it was such a big hit but I decided to do Tangled like I'd originally planned. I'm really glad I didn't change my mind on that one. I'm sure most of you have seen Tangled, and if not you really ought to. There was one scene where Flynn Ryder and Maximus are fighting to get the satchel first. I have never seen anyone laugh at this scene the way my students did. Oh. My. Goodness. I was laughing so hard I was crying, but I wasn't laughing at the movie I was laughing at them. These kids were just going wild. Some of them were in tears of mirth like me, some were banging on desks, some were clutching their desks trying to breath, some almost fell off their little stools. I was afraid someone was going to come in and tell us we were being too loud. My other favorite part was when Flynn makes it to the top of the tower and Rapunzel hits him with a frying pan. One poor girl in the front row was so surprised by what happened that she let out a little scream squeal thing. I really like watching movies with my students because it's like watching movies with my sisters. Laughing at stupid parts that nobody else really laughs at. The only difference is sometimes I would understand jokes that they wouldn't so I'd burst out laughing and then they'd all look at me funny. That never happens with my sisters.
Thursday afternoon my friends Scotty, Jessie and Doris came to visit me in my dormitory. They're all in grade 2. Scotty brought some music to listen to. I was surprised by the American artists that he had. The two that surprised me the most were David Archuleta and Jon Schmidt. I told him that they were both from the same state as me. While they were there they decided to look through my photos and take some. The one that they really liked was one that was taken while on vacation in Wyoming with my family last summer. There was a statue of an Indian that was very realistic looking. My grandpa told me that he thought he saw the statue breathing and that had me all scared to take a picture with it. One of the pictures was me looking like I was about to cry, I did not let them take that one. After I kicked the statue in the shins to see if he winced or not I was able to take an okay picture with it. Scotty, Jessie and Doris really liked that picture and decided they wanted it. Jessie said something to Doris in Chinese and I responded in English with, "No, he's not real." A shocked silence fell over the room and everyone stared at me for a long time. Jessie finally was able to say "You understood that?" and I reassured her that I didn't, I'd just made a lucky guess. I'm actually getting pretty good at guessing what people are saying in Chinese. I was talking with my friends Rick and Sarah the other day and we were joking about how no one will want to play charades with us when we get back to America because we're getting good at communicating with charades.

Chinese Idol and More!

This past weekend was very filled with lots of traveling and lots of fun. Saturday there was a Women's Conference in Shanghai where Sister Siliva Allred would be speaking. I was super excited to have the opportunity not only to say that I've seen sister Allred but also that I saw Sister Allred in Shanghai, China. Not something every person can say. So Friday afternoon Alyssa and I left to go to NanJing. We spent the night there because it would have been too difficult and basically impossible to get to Shanghai on time for the conference if we left from Yangzhong Saturday morning. The conference was a lot of fun, it's always nice to get together and not be a minority for once.

 After the conference the NanJing China Horizons teachers took Alyssa and I to a Music Festival near a university. That was a ton of fun! It was basically like an American Idol except Chinese. They picked one girl winner and one boy winner. We met up with two boys from Africa that the NanJing teachers knew at the festival and they were a lot of fun as well. One of the boys told me that I looked like I was British. He told one of our other friends that she doesn't talk much and then informed me that I look like I shouldn't talk much because I wear glasses and don't wear make up. I informed him that I had a cornea infection and since he was a medical student in NanJing he understood.
My lesson this week was probably the best lesson I've taught for a long time. First I taught my students "Soft Kitty" from the Big Bang and even had some awesome actions to go with it. They loved it! After that we played bingo with minimal pairs. I didn't know what a minimal pair was until coming to China so I'll just give a quick definition just in case some of you are like me. A minimal pair is two words that sound and look a like but are different by just one or two letters. The ones that my students really had a hard time with were tail and tell and bat and bad. I had them all draw a square with nine boxes inside. They put a word that I had on my PowerPoint in each box. I also had them practice yelling Bingo because that seemed to be a tricky thing for them. I informed them that I am American and therefore I am loud. My family can attest that this is true. In one class I randomly shouted bingo and one boy in the front looked like he had a mini seizure and wet himself. It was hilarious! I went around the room to make sure that everyone had done their bingo card correctly. I would alternate between words like yes, awesome, great, lovely, wonderful, amazing etc. One boy that I came to beat me to it and said "Awesome, I know." After the student yelled bingo they came up and I would check to see if it was right. If it was right they got a Starburst. If it was wrong they sang "Soft Kitty". It's funny because when the students would come up the other students would start chanting "Sing, sing, sing, sing!" hoping that they were wrong and had to sing "Soft Kitty". After playing bingo for a couple rounds we moved on to blackout. I had one  class where not a single person had gotten all the words right. We sang a lot of "Soft Kitty" in that class. In Class 5 the boy that bought me ice cream last week got a blackout and he got all the words right. I told him great job and gave him his candy. As he left he said "Oh thank you teacher! I will buy you ice cream!" I told him to not buy me ice cream but to buy himself ice cream because he did such a great job. Then I announced to the class that he was the best student because he bought me ice cream and no one else has. After class was over, this boy came up to me with his friend and said "Teacher, he will buy you ice cream." I laughed and thanked him but told him I might get fat so maybe later. The boy nodded thoughtfully and said "Yes, after you have lost weight he will buy you ice cream." Yeah, that one backfired.

Since I live in China I have heard more fireworks than in my entire life put together. That isn't too big a surprise considering the Chinese invented fireworks. They light them off for every occasion: a birth, a birthday, a wedding, a new building whatever they want. And the time of day doesn't matter. In fact, it is 10:13 am right now and I have a lovely chorus of fireworks right outside my office window. This being the case Josh decided to buy some fireworks and last night we decided to light them. It was just firecrackers, nothing that went in the air or anything so we went out to the street by Josh and Alyssa's school to do it. Alyssa and I stood on the sidewalk while Josh laid out the nine foot string of them. He got the lighter counted to three and lit them. After that things get a little fuzzy. My mind registered that there was a stinging sensation in my legs and it also registered a look of panic on Josh's face as he tried to stand up and get away. I then realized I was screaming and running and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of a field bent over with Alyssa. Josh finally made it over and for the second time in China he insisted on a group hug. I was still in shock so I didn't stand  up straight and my face ended up squished against Josh's stomach but I don't think anyone noticed except me because we were all kind of hyperventilating still. After a minute we tried to figure out what had happened. It turns out the Chinese keep the good fireworks for themselves instead of shipping them off to the West. Josh had lit the fireworks and they immediately started going and the poor kid was getting hit by fireworks everywhere. Alyssa and I were not standing very far away so we were also getting hit (Obviously not as bad as poor Josh). By some miracle none of us sustained any serious injuries. Oh, I neglected to mention that white people already get stared at by Chinese people but white people that light fireworks and then go running and screaming into a nearby field attract a lot more attention.

Suicidal Frogs and Justin Beiber Cheating on his Girlfriend?!

This week was really good for me, last week and weekend I was starting to feel like China would really kill me off between the bugs and the heat. While I still have bug bites and I think I might be permanently scarred with giant red dots the bugs have been much better this week. Also, I took the remote to my AC and pushed buttons randomly to fix it and somehow it worked! I actually get a little cold at night sometimes now. I think I'll be able to make it, thank heaven! Supposedly, May is the rainy season but it's been so sunny so I'm not sure I completely believe that. We did have some rain Monday night and Tuesday morning but that's been it. I've been laughing about how much things have changed. When I first got to Yangzhong and the sun came out everyone got so happy and we'd go out and sit in the sunshine just because we can. When it was cloudy everyone sulked inside wondering why it wasn't ever sunny here. Now when it's sunny we sit inside and sulk with the AC on full blast and eat way more ice cream than can be considered healthy. Then when it's finally cloudy we venture outside. China has some really amazing ice cream. Now that it's warmer they have little coolers about every two feet and it's only 2 yuan for most of them. I have my favorites and lots of places that I frequent are probably are thinking that the stereotypes about Americans being fat is true.
In my classes I've started threatening my students a little bit. Since they're still okay with hitting students in China my threats really aren't that serious. When my students don't follow the rules with whatever game we're playing I tell them they must buy me ice cream. I've never actually enforced it but it's still funny and they get a kick out of. On Wednesday I was walking from the canteen to my office during lunch break so all the students were out in this little courtyard thing. It was really sunny so I was staring at the ground when suddenly I heard "Teacher! Teacher!" I looked up and my favorite student was running towards me. He came up to me and said "May I buy you ice cream?" I bet you can't guess what I said to that! I started laughing and told him that I would love for him to buy me ice cream. There's a little treat shop on campus that he ran to. I was expecting something small but he came over with a huge cup of vanilla ice cream with something purple and jelly like on it. It was delicious. I felt a little guilty about it but it's really a culture thing. I've had stuff like this happen multiple times and they always say that China is hosting me and it is their duty. And really, as I was enjoying the ice cream I wasn't feeling too guilty about it. Later, Andy was giving me crap about it, in a joking manner I'm sure, and one of the teachers in my office said "Your students don't give you things?" and she sounded quite shocked about it. Some of Andy's students were in the office at the time and she told them that they must buy Andy ice cream next time he taught class. That helped me feel less guilty about it.
I'm starting to lose enthusiasm and ideas for classes so this week wasn't as exciting as some other weeks. I taught them about storytelling. I told them the story of Cinderella and when my family went to Yellowstone last year. They really liked the picture of the buffalo that I showed them. Afterwards we played the story game. I wrote two different starting sentences on a piece of paper and then passed them around the room so each student could add a sentence to the story. That's where the suicidal frogs come in. One sentence I started with was "Once upon a time there was a frog who wanted to be a man." During the story he tried really hard but my students decided he was so depressed that he committed suicide. That was pleasant. But don't worry, after he killed himself he woke up and realized he was still alive and king of the country and lived a happy life. The Justin Beiber one was probably my favorite one though. The starting sentence was "The boy looked in the mirror and thought to himself "I am so handsome!"". Sadly, this handsome boy was killed in an accident but when he got to heaven he married Lady Gaga who I didn't know was dead. Must have missed that one... They had a little girl who fell in love with Justin Beiber who in their words is "A really handsome boy is very shy". Not the impression I was under but nobody asked me. He rudely decided he didn't love the girl and she went away. At the end Justin Beiber realized he did love the girl but she didn't love him anymore. Such is life. They are completely obsessed with Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga here. In fact, one expression that just makes me laugh everytime I hear it is "Oh my Lady Gaga!"

Darth Vader Lives In China

Ni Hao!
It's funny how different life in China is from when I got here. At the beginning I wore more clothes than I have worn at one time in my entire life. And I was starting to think that I was never going to sweat again. Boy, was I wrong about that one. I think I've sweat more than enough to make up for the two months of never sweating in the past two weeks. I wear lots of dresses and skirts now because they're much cooler than shorts. Another weird phenomenon that has showed up recently that I just don't know how to handle is humidity. I like living in a dry state and having to put on lotion fifty times a day instead of never. I constantly feel sticky and wet and just all around gross. At the beginning I was showering twice a week. Now I shower twice a day. In the morning when I actually shower and in the evening when I'm just using the cold water to cool me down for bed. Oh, that's another plus I forgot to mention. Last week I realized that I've been kind of dumb. My water heater has worked this entire time I just didn't figure it out. It plugs in in two places and one of them wasn't plugged in tight. So, now that I want freezing cold showers I have hot water! Lucky me. Another new thing is the mosquitoes. Did you know that they are actually nocturnal and are forcing me to be the same. They come and buzz in my ear all night. When they're not doing that they're drinking my blood which judging by how many bites I have must be absolutely delicious. Really, I look completely diseased, like I have the chicken pox again. It's great. I've started jumping from bed to bed at night wielding my Chinese Mandarin phrasebook and destroying every mosquito stupid enough to come anywhere near me. That phrasebook has served me better as a mosquito killer than for actually learning Chinese. Before I left for China my mom bought some anti itch cream to bring to China. I thought it was a good thought but I didn't really think I'd ever use it. Boy was I wrong. I'm hoping it out lives the mosquitos! One of the pluses about things getting warmer is people have traded their nose muffs for Darth Vader masks. Alright, so they don't actually breath funny but I still think it looks like loads of Darth Vaders on the loose. They wear these masks on their electric bikes to shield themselves from flying bugs. It's a really smart idea but I don't think I'll be jumping on that band wagon as easily as I did the nose muff.
Classes last week were really good. I split them into two teams and assigned each student a number. I'd then write the beginning of a sentence on the board and call a number. Those two students would then have to come to the front of the room and finish the sentence. It was a lot of fun seeing what they would come up with. I always started with 'The Chinese are...' and it was amazing how much they struggled with that one. I mean really, they are Chinese you think they'd be able to think of something to say about their own culture! They did much better with 'Americans should' ironically. One of my classes wrote 'Americans should lose weight'. I stood at the front and pretended to be offended. I asked the student if he really thought I was fat but all he did was giggle which didn't help my self esteem much. After class I was out on campus and my favorite student from that class came up to me and said "Teacher, I don't think you are fat. I think you are sexy!" Unfortunately I had just taken a sip of water when he said this and having a student from class tell me I was sexy did not help the water on the way down. I started coughing and laughing and told him thank you but he probably shouldn't use that word in that way. But I really did appreciate the gesture, he's a hilarious kid. One of the sentences I used was 'I think dogs should wear trousers because...' and that one was a lot of fun. I got quite a few 'because they get cold in the winter too' and 'because they would look lovely'. My favorite was one boy who wrote 'because then they could attract a male/female dog.' In a couple classes I did 'A fork and knife are used for...' and they apparently think we are barbaric because we use a fork and knife to kill people. I tried telling them that I have never killed anyone with a fork and knife and asked them how they possibly thought anyone could use a fork as a deadly weapon. They actually had answers and some of them acted out stabbing people with forks. Yeah... that's one of those things that I just let go.
Before I had them complete the sentence I tried to get them warmed up with using lots of descriptive words and such. To do this I showed them a couple pictures and had them describe things about the picture. One of the pictures I showed was me hugging one of my younger sisters at my uncle's wedding last year. One of the girls in the class stood up and said "It is a picture of you hugging your mom." I started laughing and exclaimed "That's my little sister!" The girl started blushing and hid her face in her hands. The whole class started laughing and were completely blown away when I told them my sister was only 17. After, one girl asked how old I was and I had the class guess. Most of them guessed 20 but one boy shouted out 25! I made fun of him for the rest of class and I don't think he'll be making that mistake again!
This past weekend our friends from Zhenjiang, Katie, Aaron and Alicyn, came on Saturday to visit. It was a lot of fun to see them and show them around Yangzhong. I picked them up at the bus station and showed them my school and dormitory before heading to meet Alyssa and Josh to get lunch and then go to a park for a picnic. This was tricky for two reasons. The Chinese don't really understand the concept of food to go because they don't do that here so it takes a couple minutes to convince the waitress that you do in fact want to take the food out of the restaurant. The other tricky thing is people here don't understand what a picnic is. They don't really sit on the ground here and even though we had a blanket it stressed some passerbys to see us sitting on the ground in such an undignified manner. One lady got really upset and told us that there were park benches over there. We were just spreading out the blanket and opening the food up when this Chinese man on a bike pulled over, parked his bike and came to squat next to us (I should mention that when I say squat I mean literally just squat not take a dump or anything. All the Chinese do it when they don't have a seat. I haven't been able to get that one down because I can't keep both feet flat on the floor). Alicyn speaks pretty good Chinese but she couldn't understand what this guy was saying to her. We offered him some food but he refused and just sat to the side while we had our picnic. He stayed for the whole time just staring at us. After we finished he got up and rode off on his bike without a word. I yelled good bye (In Chinese I just don't know how to spell it) and he waved and that's the last we saw of him. It was really weird. After our little picnic we wandered around the park and then headed off to the cheap market. We wandered around there for a while and then the Zhenjiangers told us they understand why we watch so much TV because we were all fairly bored and none of the Yangzhongians knew what else to do because there just isn't anything else to do. Rick and Sarah met up with us and I'm sure that made us the biggest group of white people many people in Yangzhong had ever seen. The nine of us sat outside the cheap market on stools, a nice lady brought us, for a while and it was funny to watch everyone double take as they went past. Yangzhong isn't a tourist spot at all so there really are not white people here and it makes us a bit more of a novelty. After sitting outside the cheap market for a little bit the 9 of us went to dinner where we overwhelmed the poor people working there. We go to that restaurant a lot so they know us pretty well but they were having another large group of people so I don't think they knew what to do with us at first. They pushed together two tables and being forced to sit at a corner I realized why square tables are stupid and that round tables are a much better idea. It was not easy to reach the middle to get food without knocking over something that belonged to Katie or Aaron who had the misfortune to sit next to me in my pathetic corner. One of the little workers there picked up a spinner to put on our table. She picked it up over her head and we all felt that deserved a round of applause. The last bus to Zhenjiang leaves Yangzhong at 6:50 and by the time it came around no one felt like our time was cut short or we had so much more to do. We all had a good time talking with each other and good byes were sad and such but no one felt cheated in the slightest.

May Day And More

This past week has been pretty good! Because of exams I didn't teach Monday and I don't ever have classes on Tuesday. Luckily I still had training for the company last week so that kept me kind of busy. Last week of training went really well. The three girls that were 'regulars' told me facts about certain lights and then I wrote out something for them to say about the lights. It sounds boring but it was actually quite fun. We all got along very well and were able to laugh about things. After training Remy would take me to her house for lunch which was a nice change from eating in the cafeteria every day. One of the days after lunch Remy took me to an unused bedroom and had me take a rest. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep at all because it seemed a little uncomfortable but I actually did sleep and had a very nice rest.
I also started tutoring Remy's mom last week. She takes me out to dinner every night and we eat and I try to tell her what foods are. She doesn't speak any English and I don't speak any conversational Chinese so sometimes it gets a little awkward. Remy tries to come with us but she can't always make it, she has a family and such. One night we went to the coffee shop here for tutoring (I got a smoothie for those of you who might have been wondering). I taught her numbers 1-10. She did really well on all the numbers except six which is really close to the word sex in case any of you haven't noticed that one before. So, we were sitting in this cute little coffee shop that has nice French music playing in the background and is just a lovely atmosphere and Remy's mom is yelling (And she is a loud woman so it really was yelling) "One, two, three, four, five, SEX!" And I'm trying to say "I i i i!" and she's just not getting it. This goes on for probably five minutes before Remy stepped in and helped out. She said six once and her mom got it. Then on Friday we went out to dinner the two of us and then back to her house for some tutoring. There wasn't much tutoring that went on there. I'm sure most of you know that in China the son and his wife live with the son's parents and this is the case here. So the only one's home were Remy's mom and Remy's dad's mom. I'd met her before she's quite nice (At least I think so, it's hard to be sure when you've got a language barrier). Well the two of them were talking and then the next thing I knew a huge fight had broken out. They were yelling at one another going on and on and I was sitting there awkwardly wondering what they were fighting about and what exactly was protocol here. It ended with grandma picking up some beads and waving her hands and then walking into the other room. Remy's mom went into another room too and I was wondering if maybe I should just slip away quietly. Eventually Remy's mom came back and we did a little tutoring (She could not say light all she could say was night).
For classes I played two truths and a lie. It was a lot of fun actually. I was trying to teach them about being creative, not exactly something that can really be taught, especially in high school. For my two truths and a lie I did I have never broken any bones,  I really am married but my husband works for the government so China wouldn't let him in, and when I was little I cut open my forehead on a slide and had to go to the hospital to be sewn up. Every one of my classes was able to figure out that I was not married. For one of my classes I changed it to me and the Scottish man were secretly dating but no on bought that one either. Not sure why... The answers they gave were pretty good too. Some of my classes took a while to get the hang of it but eventually they all got it. I told them from the beginning that if anyone said "I like to play basketball, I like to sleep, I like computer games, or I don't like to study" they would buy me ice cream because every single student gives those answers. Sad to say no one had to buy me ice cream.  One class tried really hard to get me my ice cream though. Whenever they felt the person hadn't given creative enough answers they would yell "That wasn't creative! They must buy us all ice cream!" My favorite was class 5 though. For some reason they decided to write their answers on the board and things got crazy from there. It was really like watching a soap opera there was so much drama going on in that class that was revealed during those measly 45 minutes. The students would come up and write some names on the board and say that they were in love or dating. My favorite was one student wrote that two other students talked on the phone from 10pm to 11pm and that was a huge scandel. I'd realized I'd been in China too long because I really did feel like that was scandelous behavior! There was one moment that was slightly awkward, one of those moments where I really am just not sure what happened. I think one of my students might have come out of the closet if you know what I mean. He volunteered to go first and I was all excited because he's one of my favorite students and I knew he'd have funny answers. Well he wrote them on the board and one of them that he wrote was "I am a gaye". I was assuming that was going to be the lie but he picked something different. Then I asked him "By this do you mean happy or... the other thing?" He got this funny grin and answered "The other thing." He started muttering something and I'm pretending like I didn't hear what he said. I really really REALLY wasn't sure what to do after that so eventually I patted his shoulder, thanked him for volunteering, had him sit down and quickly called up someone else. I've talked about this boy before back at the very beginning. The first week of school he was the boy that said he didn't think any of the girls in his class were cute if you remember that story from way back in February. The rest of that class went well though. I didn't even have to ask for volunteers they were running to the front to take their turn.
This past Tuesday was May Day which is China's Labor Day. So the students in grade 1 and 2 got Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off of school. Grade 3 only got Monday and Tuesday off. Since I teach grade 1 I got the longer holiday. This does mean that we had make up classes on Saturday. Yes, I don't really understand it either but that's how China works. So Saturday I taught Monday classes. So I taught Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday last week and got Friday off which was lovely. I'm having the hardest time keeping track of the days with all these breaks! Since I didn't teach my Monday class on Monday I did my two truths and a lie lesson which was lovely. It was kind of a rough class because I didn't really want to be teaching on Saturday and they didn't want to be in class so neither me or the students had any sort of motivation to do much. We played for a little bit and then we all lost interest and some of my students sang songs for us instead. Not sure why but the Chinese love to sing songs, especially in class and such. Probably why KTV is so popular here. One boy came up to the front and had me scoot over so he could use my desk/podium thingy as a drum it appeared. He starts banging on it and singing "We Will Rock You". I was super impressed with it actually. He knew all the words and sounded pretty good. One boy stood up and sang a song with words that sounded like absolute nonsense. For any Arthur fans out there it reminded me of the Crazy Bus song with all the fake sounding words. After he finished I said "Can I ask a question? Was that Chinese?" All the students started laughing and said no and I was thinking that for sure it was made up then. But then they told me it was Japanese as if that explained why I thought it was fake. That class finally ended and the holiday was upon us!
I wasn't traveling anywhere far this holiday. I had planned on going to Suzhou but there was no place to stay and even if there was all the prices were jacked up because it was a holiday. Instead I was going to hang out with my good friend Alicyn from Zhenjinag. She hadn't been able to get very many days off to travel anywhere either. Sunday our plan was to meet at the train station in Zhenjiang and head to Nanjing for church. I made it there just on time but Alicyn had problems with the bus system. She waited for a bus 19 for a half hour before one finally showed up. She saw plenty of bus 19 going the opposite direction so she knew they were running but none came her way. By the time she got there it was 9 and the line to by train tickets was out the door and we knew it'd be at least an hour before we'd be able to get tickets. So we decided to just hang out in Zhenjiang for the day. There was a really cool park by the Yangtze River that we went to for the afternoon. For lunch we went to the best dumpling restaurant I've ever been to. I got boiled dumplings and fried dumplings for 9  yuan. To put that in perspective it's about $1.50 US dollars for lunch. For dinner we went to the best fried rice restaurant I've ever been to and I think it was only 6 yuan which is 1 US dollar. Yeah, don't think I broke the bank with food that day and it all tasted delicious! I went home that night because Alicyn couldn't have people stay at her apartment. Since I wasn't spending the money I'd planned on spending May Holiday with big stuff I didn't feel too bad about it. Monday we had planned on going to a hot spring/spa in Nanjing. Sunday night Alicyn was doing some research on it and realized it was a place where you get a hotel room and spend the night there because it's more of an all day thing. So on Monday we ended up shopping all day. Sadly, we have little to show for our shopping. All the cheap markets don't open until night so it was only the expensive stores open. But we had a good time wandering around and looking at the clothes. The thing I really like about Alicyn is there's never an awkward moment where you worry about what to say. The conversation just flows and it was nice to walk around just chatting. Tuesday I was super lazy. I did go to the Suguo and buy some groceries but that was about it. The exciting part about that was to celebrate May Day I bought peanut butter and as a treat I dipped some really good cookies in the peanut butter. Oh it tasted like Nutter Butters. Then I got really crazy and finished up a Symphony Bar with peanut butter and these delicous cookies. That night I went over to Rick and Sarah's, who also didn't travel anywhere for the holiday, and we went out to dinner. I just want to pause in this story to say I have the best mom in the world. Here's why: (Any of you who know me well will either A. Agree that my mom is the best mom in the world because of this or B. At least acknowledge that I would think that because they don't want to get in trouble with their own mothers) she sent me popcorn. Popcorn is a staple of life for me and not something you get in China. Oh sure they sell stuff that says "American Style Popcorn" at the grocery stores but then you eat it and wonder who told them this is American style popcorn. So after dinner the three of us went back to their place where we watched "Hitch" and ate popcorn. It was the best night of my life! So, I didn't do anything spectacular for holiday but I had a really good time relaxing a bit more and I don't regret not traveling farther than Zhenjiang.